About Brent Green

About Brent GreenThis blog is about Baby Boomers and our impact on business, society, and culture, today and in the future.
Here I explore many themes relevant to those of us on a thoughtful journey to reinvent the future of aging. I am a consultant and author of six books, including "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions."
I present workshops and give keynote speeches about the intersection of the Boomer generation, business, aging, and societal transformations.
My company, Brent Green & Associates, Inc., is an internationally award-winning firm specializing in building brands and forming successful commercial relationships with Boomers through the unique power of generational marketing. Marketing to Boomers
I welcome your comments and questions here. This blog is a continuing conversation that began in June 2005, and I'll appreciate hearing from you.

Brent Green & Associates is a leading marketing company with specialized expertise in selling products and services to the Boomer male market, comprised of over 35 million U.S. adults. Click here to visit our website.

Business Experts

Lee EisenbergLee Eisenberg is the author of "The Number," a title metaphorically representing the amount of resources people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career. Backed by visionary advice from the former Editor-in-Chief of "Esquire Magazine," Eisenberg urges people to assume control and responsibility for their standard of living. This is an important resource for companies and advisors helping Boomers prepare for their post-career lives.

Kim WalkerKim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in Asia Pacific, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. His newest venture is SILVER, the only marketing and business consultancy focused on the 50+ market in Asia Pacific. He has been a business trends and market identifier who had launched three pioneer-status businesses to exploit opportunities unveiled by his observations.

Hiroyuki MurataHiroyuki Murata (Hiro) is a well-known expert on the 50+ market and an opinion leader on aging issues in Japan and internationally. Among his noteworthy accomplishments, Murata introduced Curves, the world’s largest fitness chain for women, to Japan and helped make it a successful business. He is also responsible for bringing the first college-linked retirement community to Japan, which opened in Kobe in August 2008.
Hiro is the author of several books, including "The Business of Aging: 10 Successful Strategies for a Diverse Market" and "Seven Paradigm Shifts in Thinking about the Business of Aging." They have been described as “must read books” by more than 30 leading publications including Nikkei, Nikkei Business, Yomiuri, and Japan Industry News. His most recent book, "Retirement Moratorium: What Will the Not-Retired Boomers Change?" was published in August 2007 by Nikkei Publishing.
Hiro serves as President of The Social Development Research Center, Tokyo, a think-tank overseen by METI (Ministry of Economy, Technology, and Industry) as well as Board members and Advisors to various Japanese private companies. He also serves as a Visiting Professor of Kansai University and as a member of Advisory Boards of The World Demographic Association (Switzerland) and ThirdAge, Inc. (U.S.).

Academy Awards and Heroes; Mickey Rourke, Boomers and Fighters

In his acclaimed comeback role, Rourke plays Randy (The Ram) Robinson, a downtrodden pro wrestler whose halcyon days are more than two decades behind him. The Ram is divorced, broken and defeated.

Parallels between The Ram and Rourke are more than cursory. Rourke’s comeback role in The Wrestler reflects aspects of his real-life comeback.

Once a rising Hollywood superstar, Rourke lost control of his career and future, nearly fading into Tinsel Town irrelevance through self-destructiveness. Suicide was once a pressing possibility.

The Academy nodded instead at Sean Penn, who won Best Actor for his portrayal of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk. This has handed Rourke another defeat, but one that won’t sideline his revitalized acting career. He has finally learned to fight back.

An interesting column juxtaposing Rourke’s role with real-life pro wrestler Tito Santana appears in a weekly New York Times column called Generation B, reported and written by Michael Winerip, a veteran Boomer journalist for the newspaper.

Rourke’s sensitive portrayal of The Ram and Winerip’s column about middle-aged professional wrestlers inspired me to reflect upon another fighting hero, Dr. Mark Crooks, who at 64 has demonstrated true grit when confronting nearly insurmountable obstacles.

A four-time cancer survivor, an extreme adventure athlete long before there was a name to describe what he did, he personifies fitness and health, exuding a lust for living on the edge that belies a manicured life.

The triumvirate ruling his intense passage has been disease, danger and determination.

He began running ten years before it became a fashionable Boomer fad. His grandmother owned a health food store in Kansas City, so he grew up consuming vitamins and organic foods when most Americans would have considered these practices cultish.

A large, well-built man with a rugged tan and supercharged athleticism, Mark was an academic pioneer at the University of Kansas, receiving the first doctoral degree in health and sports science with a minor in sports psychology. He confronted academic traditions with a persistent dislike for conventional thinking.

A simmering distrust of capricious power, borne of a father's abandonment in childhood, focused him laser-like on achievement and taught him that life is a risk, and the way to meet adversity is through intense physical and mental preparation. The way to fight injustice is to spark fear among the unjust. His imposing physical size and superior fitness have served him to this end, motivating him to test the limits of strength and endurance.

The arch of Mark’s life began at age fourteen months when ignorant doctors treated a sinus infection with radiation. The unfiltered nuclear blast was 70 times the level considered safe by today’s standards.

This overdose fractured his immune system, spawned a tennis-ball size tumor in his neck at age nine, and now, as a middle-aged man, has forced him to confront thyroid, lung and prostate cancers during the last ten years. He has walked then jogged away from each medical challenge.

Mark has stared down death 39 times. He has survived several near-fatal motorcycle accidents, watched a shotgun blow up in his hands, nearly collided with a riverboat while swimming at night in the Missouri River, and crashed into the Kansas prairie in an ultra-light hang glider. And he has also survived daredevil feats to demonstrate resilience of the human body under most adverse conditions.

After exhaustive physical and mental training, he successfully jumped ninety feet into the Missouri River from a downtown Kansas City bridge; he swam from Kansas City to St. Louis in the Missouri River, fighting hypothermia and exposure for five exhausting days; he scaled the highest building in Kansas City; and, he came within hours of setting the world’s record for continuous underwater scuba diving.

These feats comprise a sizeable portion of his book published in the early 1980s: Achieving Wellness through Positive Risk Taking. Although this book never found a large national audience due to the vagaries of self-publishing, Mark nevertheless was years ahead of fitness trends then sweeping the nation, from jogging to daily vitamin supplementation, from organic foods to strength training.

What is important about Mark’s story isn’t just the melodrama of a determined life but the wisdom he has gathered along the way. He personifies Friedrich Nietzsche’s inspirational message:

That which does not destroy you makes you stronger.

His journey reveals the discipline and intelligence of a thoughtful academic, contrasted with the “Go for it” nonchalance of an extreme athlete. He has conquered insurmountable odds because he understands the human body, how to overcome disease and heal tissue damage. Like Mickey Rourke, he knows how to fight back.

Mickey Rourke’s cinematic portrayal of a professional wrestler and Mark Crooks' confrontations with cancer have important implications to those who want to create unforgettable advertising campaigns targeting Boomers.

Comeback and survival themes resonate powerfully with this generation, now more than ever.

Mickey Rourke's true victory with The Wrestler is professional achievement against all odds, a role reenacted daily by my friend Mark.

Comments

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I am so glad to see Mickey Rourke making a comeback. He is a great actor. Dr. Mark Crooks's story is also inspiring. As a cancer survivor, I know how difficult it can be to take your life back when it has been intruded upon. We should all take something from this, and remember it's never too late to achieve great things.

Boomer Resources

Senior ForumsSenior Forums is a very active online community where the issues that interest Boomers are discussed, dissected, derided, defended, or downright denied in an aura of friendly chatter and banter among like-minded people.
Bring your sense of humor and join a laid-back, international forum of straight talkers who generously offer common sense to support those who need it and laugh with those who embrace the funny sides of aging.

Fierce with AgeCarol Orsborn, Ph.D., invites readers and followers of her blog to join her for what promises to be an exciting, challenging and rewarding next stage, similar in transformation to earlier chapters of life that the Boomer generation traversed and reinvented over the decades. A respected Boomer business authority and author of 19 books focused on spirituality, Carol trusts that through prayer, meditation, personal and spiritual growth, Boomers have the potential to fundamentally change their lives for the good, experiencing the aging process as “a potent mix of spiritual growth and personal empowerment.”

50plusboomerlife — Boomer life - travel - fashion - facts and more!This charming blog is written with purpose and passion by Kristine Drake, a native of Norway. I met Kristine at a magazine launch event in Stockholm, and we've remained in touch. Please keep in mind that this articulate and insightful blog is being written by someone who uses English as her second language. You'd never know it unless I told you so. Norway is a magical country, so Kristine's European perspective about life after 50 enriches us all.

Fifty Is The New FortySince 2007, FiftyIsTheNewForty.com has been a dynamic, trendy go-to destination for savvy and successful 50-something women. Interviews with prominent Boomers, articles, guest blogs and reviews. Fun, funny, informative, and relevant.

Mark Miller's "Hard Times Retirement" Mark Miller, author of "The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security," is a journalist, author and editor who writes about trends in retirement and aging. He has a special focus on how the Boomer generation is revising its approach to careers, money and lifestyles after age 50.
Mark edits and publishes RetirementRevised.com, featured as one of the best retirement planning sites on the web in the May 2010 issue of "Money" Magazine. He also writes Retire Smart, a syndicated weekly newspaper column and also contributes weekly to Reuters.com.

David Cravit's blogDavid Cravit is a Vice President at ZoomerMedia Ltd. and has over 30 years’ experience in advertising, marketing and consulting in both Canada and the US. His book "The New Old" (October, 2008, ECW Press and recommended here) details how the Baby Boomers are completely reinventing the process of aging – and the implications for companies, government, and society as a whole.

Silver - Boomer Marketing in Asia PacificThe only strategic business and marketing consultancy focused on 50+ in Asia Pacific, SILVER is helping companies leverage the opportunities presented by the rapidly rising population of ageing consumers throughout Asia Pacific. Founder and CEO Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in APAC, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. Silver can INFORM with unique research, data and insight reports into the senior market. ADVISE to help companies increase understanding through audit of their ageing-readiness, strategic workshops, training and executive briefings. CONNECT business to the senior market through refined brand positioning plus relevant and targeted communications strategies.

VibrantNation.comVibrantNation.com is the online destination for women 50+, a peer-to-peer information exchange and a place to join in smart conversation with one another. “Inside the Nation” is Vibrant Nation Senior Strategist Carol Orsborn's on-site blog on marketing to the upscale 50+ woman. Carol, co-author of “Boom,” as well as 15 books for and about Boomers, shares her informed opinions from the heart of the demographic.

Entitled to KnowBoomers better get ready for a deluge of propaganda about why Social Security and Medicare should not be secure and why these programs must be diminished and privatized. This award-winning blog, sponsored by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, provides an in-depth resource of breaking news and cogent analysis. You've been paying for these programs since inception of your career; now it's time to learn how as individuals and collectively we can preserve them for all generations.

Time Goes ByThis is the definitive blog to understand what is happening to a generation as it ages. Intelligent. Passionate. Humanistic.

Route 50PlusProduced by the Dutch organization Route 50Plus, this website brings news, knowledge, and information about the fifty-plus population. The Content and links can be found from more than 4000 national and international sources. Topics include fifty-plus marketing, media, new products, services, and trends. Partners of Route 50Plus include Plus Magazine, 50 Plus Beurs, SeniorWeb, Nederland Bureau door Tourisme & Congressen, Omroep MAX, De Telegraaf, MediaPlus, and Booming Experience.

Dr. Bill ThomasUnder the leadership of Dr. Bill Thomas, ChangingAging.org seeks to elevate elders and elderhood in our society by taking-to-task the media, government and other interest groups who perpetuate a declinist view of aging.

Serene AmbitionSerene Ambition is about what Boomers can do, and more importantly, who Boomers can be as they grow older. Blogger Jim Selman is committed to creating a new interpretation or paradigm for the second half of life

The Boomer ChroniclesThe Boomer Chronicles, an irreverent blog for baby boomers and others, is updated every Monday through Friday, usually several times daily.
Host Rhea is a Boston-based journalist and a Gemini who grew up in a small town in New Jersey. She has written for People magazine and The Boston Globe. She was also managing editor of Harvard University’s newspaper, The Gazette. She wrote the “Jamaica Plain (Boston)” chapter of the book WalkBoston (2003; Appalachian Mountain Club) and started a popular series of Jamaica Plain walking tours in 1996.

LifeTwoLifeTwo is a community-driven life planning and support site for adults who have recognized the speed at which days are passing by. This often begins to happen in-between the mid-30s and the mid-50s. Sometimes this recognition is triggered by a divorce, career change, personal loss or some other significant event and sometimes it is just the calendar hitting 35 or 40. The hosts' goal is to take what otherwise might become a midlife "crisis" and turn it into a positive midlife transition.

BoomerCafé.comBoomerCafé is the only ezine that focuses on the active, youthful lifestyles that boomers pursue. Instead of a brand new edition every week or every month, BoomerCafé is changing all the time, which means there’s often something new to read each time you go online at www.boomercafe.com.

Jean-Paul TréguerJean-Paul Tréguer is the author of "50+ Marketing" and founder of Senioragency International, the first and only international marketing and advertising network dedicated to Boomers 50+ and senior consumers.

Dick StroudGenerational and 50+ marketing is taking off in Europe, with no small thanks to the author of newly published "The 50+ Market."

David WolfeRespected widely for his thought-leading book, "Ageless Marketing," the late David Wolfe established an international reputation for his insights, intellect and original thoughts about the future of aging. This blog carries on ageless marketing traditions in honor of David.

Matt ThornhillBoomer pundit Matt Thornhill has taken new ground with his path-breaking Boomer research. When you need fresh Boomer insights, contact Matt for original research, both online and focus group.

Chuck NyrenChuck Nyren, author of "Advertising to Baby Boomers," is a seasoned creative director and copywriter with talent to match. Ad agencies absolutely need his counsel about any of their clients planning to target Boomers.